


Loyalty

by bubblewrapstargirl



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Relationships, Ensemble Cast, Gen, If you are a fan of season 7 and Jonerys this is not for you, Implied Relationships, Jon Snow knows nothing, Jon Snow the Fuckboy of the North, Kingdom of the North remains Independant, Post Season/Series 07, Sansa Unites the North, hints of future Jonsa, rated for language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-12
Updated: 2017-10-12
Packaged: 2019-01-16 12:58:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12343152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bubblewrapstargirl/pseuds/bubblewrapstargirl
Summary: Jon Snow swore to be our King, uphold the laws of our people, and fight in our name. Instead he betrayed his House and Kingdom, and broke faith with the Old Gods.Sansa learns that Jon has bent the knee. She doesn't take it well.( ( Or, The One Where the Northern Lords are Disgusted that Robb and All Their Men Died for Nothing, Say 'Fuck You, and the Dragon You Rode in On' to Jon and Daenerys and Declare They're Having None of It. ) )****





	Loyalty

**Author's Note:**

> An extreme version of what the Northern reaction to Jon's season 7 decisions might be. Hardly what canon will provide, but still a fun scenario to explore.

Sansa is not proud of the way her hand trembles, as she reads the letter. She had trained long and hard to learn how to mask her emotions. She has been beaten and raped, forced into roles far below her station, forced to pretend to be anything her captors demanded. If she had shivered in front of Queen Cersei, they would have assumed her scared, a frightened girl with not a thought of worth in her head. Only Tyrion had suspected there was more to Sansa than she revealed. He perhaps, might have guessed her quivering hand came from suppressed anger.

But here she stands, in her father’s solar, regarding Jon’s words, penned in his familiar deep, neat scrawl. He was always so good at his lessons, though she never gave him a shred of credit for it, as a child. Familiar shame wells in her stomach, but it is dragged away by an unwelcome tide of fury. She is not the one that has brought shame to her House, this time.

“Fetch my sister.” She commands, her voice unrecognisable. Sansa then waits for Arya in furious silence; not trusting herself not to scream and rage if she attempts to say another word.

She thrusts the letter at Arya as soon as her younger sister enters the room. It is crumpled from Sansa’s tight clench, but still legible. She sees the confusion, surprise, and yes, anger, on Arya’s face: before that familiar blank mask her sister wears, falls neatly back into place.

“Jon has bent the knee to the Dragon woman?” Arya asks incredulously, as though the words are not plain in front of her.

Sansa refuses to say another word, too used to Arya’s harsh censure directed her way. But Jon was always Arya’s favourite sibling. Sansa does not expect less than total support for him, from her, as per usual. Sansa will not give Arya the satisfaction of being the first to voice her fury that Jon could do this to them.

“ _Robb died_ fighting for an independent Kingdom of the North. _Mother_ died-” Arya hisses, through gritted teeth. She glares up at Sansa, but for once the wild fury there is not for Sansa herself.

A dark, horrible satisfaction builds in Sansa’s breast. For perhaps the first time in their lives, Arya agrees with Sansa over Jon. Her smile is a grim slash across her pretty Tully features.

“Jon has betrayed us.” Sansa whispers, and lets herself feel the truth of it, like a stab, hard and quick. Jon is her brother, but now he is just another stupid man, making stupid decisions, and letting her down. She was foolish to put her faith in another man, even one so brave and strong as Jon. Until this moment, she believed him to be a true knight, like one from the stories she had long stopped believing in. She was foolish to hope he could be any different. In the end, he is just another man eager to throw his honour away for lust.

Arya is many things, but a craven is not one of them. She nods in agreement with Sansa, even if she cannot bring herself to condemn Jon with actual words. Sansa takes the cursed letter back, and resists the urge to toss it into the fire. Instead she tucks it into the folds of her dress, and pretends not to see the tear that drips from Arya’s cheek.

 

*

 

“Jon named me the Lady of Winterfell in his stead.” Sansa begins, to the collection of her vassal lords and ladies, hastily gathered in the great hall. She sits at what was once the Lord Paramount’s table, in her late father’s seat, her Tully red hair cascading freely over her shoulders. Her dress is black, free from adornment, as is her new custom. She no longer needs frippery to impress upon others who, and what she is.

“I have called you here my lords, to tell you of a raven I lately received.”

Lyanna Mormont’s eyes are burning into her, from where she sits, wedged between her loyal men. The little Lady of Bear Island stood against Stannis Baratheon, Roose and Ramsay Bolton, and all others who would seek to steal the Stark’s birthright. It will bring Sansa no joy to tell this brave girl of how thoroughly Jon has let her down.

“Jon has chosen to abdicate, to name himself Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North, and Bent the Knee to Daenerys Targaryen, who calls herself the true heir to the Iron Throne. I can only offer my most heartfelt apologies, my lords. He has forsaken the trust we all placed in him.”

Angry mutterings begin immediately. The younger son of House Tallhart, who lately became lord of Hornwood, calls to see the letter. Sansa obediently hands the note to a soldier from the Vale, who makes to pass it across, but is waylaid by Robett Glover. The stern lord snatches the letter from the soldier’s slack, unsuspecting grip.

“It’s true,” Lord Glover sneers, “Jon Snow claims the Dragon Woman is a fair ruler, who will use her dragons to defend us from the dead, in return.”

“Fuck the dragons, one's already dead and gone!” Lord Cley Cerwyn barks, his weaselly, pointed face screwed up in disgust. “She’s a foreign whore! The daughter of the Mad King, is she not? That godless sister-fucker, that Ned Stark and Robert Baratheon overthrew!" 

“Indeed she is, my lord. They say she is very beautiful, and yet unmarried. Perhaps Jon has decided he need not be King in the North, when she could grant him a better title.” Sansa says demurely, ignoring the foul language that is spat by several men in response. “They say the Dragon Queen rides with Dothraki screamers, and the Unsullied. She will give us the dragonglass found in Dragonstone, to fight off the undead… provided we prostrate ourselves before her, and give up the old ways.”

Every eye in the room is suddenly fixed upon Sansa once more. Most lords are looking at her in a mixture of shock and horror. But some look furious enough that she knows Jon’s life would be forfeit, if he were stood in this room, this very moment.

“Give up the Old Ways?” It is Lord Robett Glover who finally speaks, his mouth slack with disbelief. “Snow wants us to bow to this foreign bitch, so that he can fuck his way into becoming King of Westeros?”

Sansa shrugs, the picture of supreme unconcern.

“They say Daenerys Targaryen is godless.” She replies, “But many of her followers believe in the Lord of Light, as Stannis Baratheon did. He was a known kinslayer, who burned his own daughter alive, in service of that god. And if I remember my studies with Maester Luwin correctly, the Dothraki believe in a Great Stallion god?”

Sansa nods, not waiting for an answer, and blithely continues; “Daenerys Targaryen was born in Essos. She cares nothing for our Gods, our laws, our customs. If she even knows what they are. I have little doubt her dragons could burn down a godwood as easily as a herd of the undead.”

There was a chilled silence as Sansa calmly spoke, but when her words were done, nothing understandable can be gleaned from the coarse roaring, as the room erupted into dissent. As she predicted, the Northern lords yell and rail against the news. Sansa sees Lyanna Mormont is devastated, her lower lip trembling in an uncharacteristic show of weakness. But the sight of her crumpled form is quickly lost, as most lords leap to their feet. Lord Glover petulantly throws his goblet across the room, to the far wall, letting out a roar of fury. Not to be outdone, Lord Manderley overturns the bench he was sitting on, sending tiny Ned Umber sprawling. All is chaos, and Sansa has never felt more like the student of Petyr Baelish, revelling in the madness she has created.

Beside her, Bran stiffens, but says not a word. Arya takes in the scene with cool detachment, and makes no move to calm the shouting mob. Eventually though, their anger simmers down enough for Sansa to call out above the din;

“My lords, my lords, peace, I beg you!”

She can see that they are reluctant to listen to any more words, calling for the Mad Dragon Queen’s head, the true threat in the North quite forgotten.

“There is no word on Cersei’s forces. We can only guess as to her response, but I spent a long time in King’s Landing, my lords, and I learned how she thinks. She cares only for herself, and her own throne. She will not fight alongside our forces, to defeat the dead. But we cannot fight against them alone, therefore we cannot afford to lose Daenerys Targaryen’s dragons.”

“So we give up our gods, become incestuous heathens, and damn ourselves?” Lyanna Mormont spits, having recovered her inner steel.

“Never.” Sansa declares. “Jon is my brother, and we declared him King for retaking Winterfell. But by his own admission, he no longer wants to be our king. However, he writes that Daenerys Targaryen, for all her flaws, has some honour. She has pledged to fight against the undead, to ensure the survival of her people. If she risks the North, she risks all of Westeros. I do not think she will turn back now.”

“What are you asking of us, Lady Sansa? We are yours to command, my lady,” affirms Alys Karstark. For the first time, Sansa is glad Jon did not strip the quiet girl of her title.

The eldest surviving child of Ned and Catelyn Stark finally explains her plan, slowly, carefully, completely composed. For all that her features favour her Tully mother, Sansa has never looked more like the Queen of Winter than in that moment; icy calm as she commands the hard, brutal men of the North.

 

*

 

Jon stares at the letter so long the words begin to blur. The hopeless fear, thick and bubbling in his stomach, which had been somewhat abated by spending his nights in Daenerys’ bed, has morphed into a thick lump of despair.

“Your Grace?” Davos asks, fatherly concern furrowing his brow.

Jon lets out a bitter laugh before he can contain it. He no longer holds the right to that address, which is precisely the problem. He was so desperate to secure Daenerys’ support, to save everyone from the White Walkers, that he didn’t realise how he was damning himself in the process.

“May I?” Davos inquires, when Jon still does not speak, reaching out his undamaged hand for the letter he is still clutching.

Jon hands it over, closing his eyes, picturing beautiful Sansa, as she must have looked when she wrote it; her slender, pale hands precise and neat. He may never see her again, and he has no one to blame but himself.

All his life, all he ever wanted to be was a Stark. Now he is nothing at all, nothing but a Queen’s to command.

 

*

 

_To Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen,_

_The North is a free and independent Kingdom, from this day, until the end of days. In bending the knee to a foreign Queen, Jon Snow has forfeited the right to name himself King, to name himself a Northman, and to name himself a member of House Stark. The North knows no King, but the King in the North, whose name is Stark. As the last living trueborn brother of Robb Stark, First of His Name, Brandon Stark has chosen to abdicate his claim to the Northern Throne._

_Therefore, Sansa of House Stark, Queen in the North, issues this decree; the North will uphold their pledge to fight alongside Daenerys Targaryen against the White Walkers, their undead thralls, and all other dangers that come from Beyond the Wall. In return, when the Great War for the Dawn is over, Daenerys Targaryen must take her supporters and ride South, to secure her Iron Throne and Six Rightful Kingdoms. If she remains in the North, it will be an act of war, and the North will justly rise against her. Jon Snow is also given leave to fight in the War for the Dawn. Jon Snow swore to be our King, uphold the laws of our people, and fight in our name. Instead he betrayed his House and Kingdom, and broke faith with the Old Gods. Therefore after the Great War, he must ride South, and never return, or he will be hanged as an Oathbreaker._

_We, the undersigned, do so swear, by the Old Gods and the New:_

_Sansa of House Stark, First of her Name, Queen in the North, Lady of Winterfell_  
_Brandon of House Stark, the Three-Eyed Raven_  
_Arya of House Stark, the Queen’s Justice_

_Eddard of House Umber, Lord of Last Hearth_  
_Wyman of House Manderly, Lord of New Castle_  
_Robett of House Glover, Lord of Deepwood Motte_  
_Lyanna of House Mormont, Lady of Bear Island_  
_Cley of House Cerwyn, Lord of Castle Cerwyn_  
_Brandon of House Tallhart, Lord of Torrhen’s Square_  
_Rodrick of House Forrester, Lord of Ironrath_  
_Beren of Houses Tallhart and Hornwood, Lord of the Hornwood  
__Alys of House Karstark, Lady of Karhold_

 

*


End file.
